Local News - Lubbock Online.com - Levelland officer halts crime spree

Sunday, January 11, 1998Last modified at 3:40 a.m. on Sunday, January 11, 1998

Levelland officer halts crime spree

By GRETCHEN PARKER

Avalanche-Journal

LEVELLAND - Police Officer Gilbert Gonzalez, a full-time officer for only seven months, is being heralded here for stopping a one-man crime wave.

The department had been looking everywhere for the quick-footed crook or crooks responsible for driving up the town's burglary rate in the past few months. A force that normally handled two burglaries a month suddenly found itself writing up two every night or three a week.

Residents in central Levelland had started locking their doors and leaving lights on since the break-ins started in early November.

Police say that since Gonzalez arrested 20-year-old Antonio Vargas on Dec. 28, the burglary rate is down - drastically. He's responsible for at least 12 recent break-ins, they say.

Detective Tammie Davis said Vargas allegedly broke into even more houses. During questioning, he couldn't remember all the burglaries he committed, Davis said.

"I think he's been burglarizing for quite some time," she said. "He didn't have a job or anything."

Only one burglary has been reported since Vargas was arrested.

Vargas was indicted for four of the burglaries Wednesday and is being held in the Hockley County Jail without bail until his arraignment this week. He already was serving a probated sentence for a burglary he committed in 1995, said District Attorney Gary Goff.

Officer Gonzalez says he knew something was up when he saw Vargas walking alone on Avenue H the night of Dec. 28.

Vargas walked with his head down, and he was carrying a United Supermarkets grocery bag - from a store across town. He stared hard at Gonzalez' police cruiser as he passed.

Gonzalez turned his car around to see what the man was up to. Vargas already had taken off, he said, running down a side alley. When Gonzalez and backup officers finally reached Vargas, he had shed his jacket, gotten rid of the bag and ditched a handgun he was carrying, police said.

Police found the bag. Inside was a Sony video game and $60 in change. Vargas allegedly was walking home from a house he'd just robbed on Avenue D, Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez attributes his success to "good suspicion. He caught himself, really - he panicked and ran," he said.

After Davis interrogated Vargas, he led her to his sister's house, where he kept his stash, she said. There they found VCRs, compact disc players, jewelry, shoes, video games and socks full of change. It was about 40 percent of what had been reported missing since November.

Vargas told police he would rifle through each house he broke into, looking for money and loose change. He chose random houses within walking distance of his own to break into, Gonzalez said.

"He would go to a house, look in it, knock on the door. He'd make sure no one was home," he said. Then he would pry his way into a back window. Once inside, he would block the front door and start looking for his take - whatever he could carry, Gonzalez said.

Sometimes he spent an hour or two going through an entire house, Gonzalez said. Then he'd cut the phone line to delay a call to police, he said.

"He'd go through every single room, taking clothes out of the closet, taking drawers out, going through papers," Gonzalez said. "That's how people would find the house when they came home."

But the department's work isn't over.

Vargas swears he broke into the houses alone, but that doesn't explain the multiple sets of footprints found outside of the burglarized houses, Davis said.

"He's just bound and determined he's not going to give his partner up," she said. "We have a few leads on who it is, and we're following them up."

Davis said Gonzalez has made her job easy. "Every time you talked to him, he was over there looking (for the burglar)," she said. "If it weren't for him, we never would've gotten this far."